Hey there! Welcome to my Riven build. Please read all of this guide and not just the items :)

As soon as I got on my computer and saw she was out, I immediately grabbed my phone and bought enough RP to buy her. In my first custom game I kind-of failed early game because I was too eager to kill the bots, as you get when you play custom. My first PVP game failed miserably, because of me having to go mid against Veigar, he being lucky and getting away with 10 HP left constantly and me failing a tower dive. The rest of my team was even worse and we ended up losing hard. This discouraged me slightly, but my next PVP game went great. I ended up 26/15, with almost all deaths at the end of the game. I started off mid again (I was forced to), and it went great this time. I was up against Yi, and I ended up completely dominating him in the mid lane. Everything went great and smooth, and the tower dives were just perfect. Unfortunately, it wasn't going so great with 2 other people of my team, a level 6 and his friend. They both failed miserably and ended up feeding Yi so bad that he was almost unstoppable, except for me, but he was never alone anymore. So they went ahead and pushed our base when we were dead and won the game.

I decided to make this guide, because all of the other guides kind-of sucked in my opinion. Many just copied the items, runes and masteries off of Phreak's Champion spotlight, even though they weren't very good. Because I learned so much from this site, I decided to give back to the community and help the newer players, and hopefully even the more advanced. So sit back and enjoy!

Pros:

Great DPS and crits
AOE attack which also stuns
Great early and mid-game, depending who you're playing against, and absolutely destructive mid-end-game.
Good escape and chasing skills
Not mana or energy dependent
Great in teamfights
Good farmer
Very fun to play

Cons:

Very CC susceptible
High cooldowns without items
Priority target if you're fed

The format is DD/MM/YY ;)

15/9/2011: Guide creation :)
15/9/2011: Added images and some more info
16/9/2011: Added Trinity Force explanation and fixed some typos, including a very, very stupid typo in the Build title (AP instead of AD)
16/9/2011: Changed masteries: Greed's point into Utility Master, 1 more point in Sorcery, 1 less in Alacrity.
19/9/2011: Switched around build 1 and 2, build 1 is now the recommended build. Both are now explained in the guide. Also added 2 new Chapters.

My Rune choices are:

Greater Mark of DesolationGreater Marks of Desolation (1.66 armor penetration, 14.94 total)
Greater Seals of Resilience (1.41 armor, 12.96 total)
Greater Glyphs of Focus (-0.65% CD reduction, -5.85% total)
Greater Quintessence of DesolationGreater Quints of Desolation (3.33 armor penetration, 9.99 total)

Alternatively, you could switch out your Glyphs of Focus for Glyphs of Vigor if you need more health regen, although this becomes useless late-game because of your incredible lifesteal, and you won't notice the difference anyway. It might be slightly useful early game, but you need the CD reduction more. Buy some health pots if you're having issues. It's also not a good idea to switch them out for Celerity glyphs, because you won't need them at level 18 as much.
The marks (and probably the quints) shouldn't be switched out. The armor Seals are great for more survivability, and I don't recommend you switch those out either.

The masteries are 21/0/9. Not much to say here. Feel free to change it if you don't like something.

I changed Greed into Utility Master, simply because Greed isn't worth it. If you do the math, you get 6 gold per minute, and 180 per 30 minutes, which equals to 8 minion kills and isn't a lot in the first place. You're far better off just putting another point in Utility Master, in case you grab blue buff.

I've tested both of the builds and I found that Build 1 without the Trinity Force is better on me. Her abilities are stronger (especially if your Bloodthirsters are full) and she's less squishy. In the second build, she's squishier, does more damage with her auto-attacks, but less with her abilities.

The best thing is to experiment with them both. If you're new to Riven, I recommend you to use Build 1. If you've played Riven for longer, I recommend trying them both and see which you like most.

I start off with Doran's Blade, for the extra damage and survivability.

Next up, I grab Ionian Boots of Lucidity for the CD reduction you need. Feel free to switch the boots out for Mercury's Threads if you're facing a team with lots of CC.

I grab Wriggle's Lantern next (Vampiric Scepter first), because it allows you to stay in your lane for a long time and helps quite nicely with farming. Also, the free wards are always nice to prevent ganks.

After that, we grab our Bloodthirster, which is a great item for Riven. Lots of AD and a nice amount of lifesteal too. What's not to love?
You can sell your Wriggle's at this point, or keep it until you get your Frozen Mallet, your choice. I usually keep it until I get my Mallet.

Now we grab our Frozen Mallet, which is going to provide you with more survivability in the form of HP, even more AD and the best thing, a slowing effect on every hit. This is great for chasing, especially combined with your Q and E. If you can manage to hit them once, no way they can escape anymore.
You should sell your Wriggle's Lantern now if you haven't already.

Then we grab a Black Cleaver, which is going to slice through armor. Lots of AD and a nice amount of Attack speed too.

This is going to provide us with a nice amount of AD and a massive amount of armor penetration, which is really going to help you a lot, especially against tanks.

As our last item, we grab a 2nd Bloodthirster, for even more AD and more lifesteal.

I start off with Doran's Blade, for the extra damage and survivability.

Next up, I grab Ionian Boots of Lucidity for the CD reduction you need. Feel free to switch the boots out for Mercury's Threads if you're facing a team with lots of CC.

I grab Wriggle's Lantern next (Vampiric Scepter first), because it allows you to stay in your lane for a long time and helps quite nicely with farming. Also, the free wards are always nice to prevent ganks.

Next up, I grab a Sheen, which will greatly improve your damage output. No way you can skip this one. The Phage comes afterwards, because it has a great slowing ability and more survivability. Then we grab our Zeal, which is useful on Riven, but less important than the other 2. We then build it into our Trinity Force.

Then comes the Infinity Edge, which is going to allow you to do awesome crits, which will really change your damage, and your auto-attacks suddenly become very, very destructive.

After that, we grab our Bloodthirster, which is a great item for Riven. Lots of AD and a nice amount of lifesteal too. What's not to love? Sell your Wriggle's Lantern after you buy your Bloodthirster, or before to be able to afford it.

Then we grab a Black Cleaver, which is going to slice through armor. Lots of AD and a nice amount of Attack speed too.

Lastly, we grab an Atma's Impaler. I've been researching on what could be a great last item and I found this. It gives you that extra little Crit chance, and a nice amount of armor, which is always good on Riven. You also get a nice Physical attack boost from its passive too.

There'll soon be a 3rd Build, which will (hopefully) be an improved version of Build 1, without a Black Cleaver and without a 2nd Bloodthirster.

Why don't you grab attack speed?
Attack speed is very bad on Riven. Riven doesn't depend on auto-attacking, and has a way higher potential with her skills. You grab AS on for example Tryndamere, Caitlyn or Miss Fortune, because they depend on auto-attacking as their biggest damage output.

Which build is better, 1 or 2?
I went over this in "Which build to use?".

Why not Warmog's, or a Thornmail?
Because they're too tanky and nearly useless on Riven. For Riven, a good defense is a great offense for the most part. The real defense comes from the Frozen Mallet for example. If they have a lot of auto-attackers though, go ahead and grab a Thornmail, but preferably sell it as soon as you're going to buy your last item.

Why are you boots grayed out and are you not selling your Wriggle's Lantern?
This is something Mobafire decides to do, incorrectly. You should never sell your boots and if you read the Item guides, you'll see when to sell your Wriggle's Lantern.

We firstly level Broken Wings. It does a ton of damage, makes chasing easy and has a great knockback. You can use it 3 times in a row with no cooldown at all, which is great! We max this out first.

We level Ki Burst second, which does nice AOE damage in a medium area and stuns targets for 0.5 seconds, which isn't long, but oh so useful. If you time this well, first blood is yours. We max this one second, because it does less damage than 3 hits of Broken Wings and Broken Wings is more useful.

The 3rd point should go in Valor, which gives you a shield and dashes you forward a little. Great for escaping and initiating (to get into range for Broken Wings for example). We max this one last, because we primarily use it for it's dashing ability. The shield is great, but less important than the 2 other skills.

Ult: On level 6, you unlock Blade of the Exile, which gives you extra AD and higher range for your abilities and basic attacks. This effect will stay for 15 seconds. In those 15 seconds, you also get a new single-use ability, Wind Slash. Wind Slash damages enemies in a cone in front of you for massive damage, roughly a second after casting it. This is awesome to catch escaping champions and works well when you tower dive too. Level this one whenever you can.

Passive: Your passive, Runic Blade, gets a charge every time you use an ability, up to 3 charges. With every charge, your next auto-attack deals bonus damage. Only 1 charge gets used every attack. This is a great passive, so be sure to basic hit between your abilities, or you'll miss out on a lot of damage.

Some people downvoted this guide because I max my Q before my W. Your Q, combined with your passive, makes farming and overall harassing way easier early-game. Mid-game, they'll both be as good as maxed, so it won't be a problem then either.

For this build, I grab Flash and Exhaust. Flash is great for getting in range to use your Q and has gotten me lots of kills. Exhaust is very great too, because it allows you to slow their attack speed, and most importantly, their movement speed. Combined with your W stun and your Q knock-back (not at the same time obviously!), you're sure to get the kill. It's also a great way to escape, combined with your E, Q and yes, also your W if they're that close.


You could switch out Exhaust with Ignite, but I advise against that. You have great chasing abilities, so use them. Using Exhaust will get you a lot more kills than Ignite.

I hope you enjoyed this guide! Please leave feedback, criticism and tips in the comments. Also, be sure to post images of how your games went ;)

This is my first guide, so I hope you guys will like it.

Now get out there and dominate!